HEALTH
AND MEDICINE EXPLAINED.
NOV.
12 2015 5:40 AM
Facilitated Communication
Is a Cult That Won’t Die
This discredited technique for communicating
with profoundly disabled people is being pushed into public schools.
[comment of Arthur Golden posted Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 11:58 PM Israel time]
After finally getting a new computer, I have right now
finished reading the article and the comments.
IDEOMOTOR EFFECT – I have read over 100 studies of Facilitated
Communication (actual experiments or reviews of experiments) over the past 10
years and although many claim there is the ideomotor effect, I do not remember
any studies that PROVE there is the ideomotor effect in the use of Facilitated
Communication. Please provide me the
citation for any studies that anyone here believes proves there is the
ideomotor effect with FC. I can be
reached by email at golden.arthur@gmail.com
To David Auerbach - Dr. Michael Weiss has a PhD in
Psychology but he is not a “behavioral” psychologist like Professor James
Todd. Did you read the nearly 20 year
old peer-reviewed article authored by Dr. Weiss et al validating Facilitated
Communication? I realize the 2001 review
of FC by Professor of Special Education Mark P. Mostert was negative about the
experiment of Dr. Weiss but I know Mostert is wrong (which I can explain but it
would take several pages to do so).
To The Cincinnati Squid – my son at his own
request at age 22 did a validation test with Dr. Howard Shane on May 3, 1994,
which he “failed.” BTW, in 1977 my then 5
year old son was the first child with nonverbal autism evaluated by Dr. Howard
Shane at Boston Children’s Hospital and in 1982 Dr. Shane designed an AAC
program for my son. Dr. Shane was
obviously an expert in autism for many years by 1994 and I later realized that
he designed a test of FC in the early 1990’s (as the expert witness to defend a
parent against sexual abuse charges) that my son could not pass because of his
autism. Privately, Dr. Shane admitted
that his test did not consider one possible variable and I immediately told him
that my son already told me that variable was relevant.
Overall, I am very concerned by the factual errors by many
of the commenters about Facilitated
Communication, which are too numerous for me to try to explain.
